NOTES AND COMMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23177, 25 October 1938, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS

COST OF ARMS RACE Nobody knows exactly what "civilisation" is spending on armaments. Figures given some time ago have no doubt increased, says tiie Daily Mirror. They were £2,6.'J2.0[)0,000 a year divided among the world's seven leading nations. This means a cost of £SOOO a minute. Think for a moment how the standard of living all over the world could be raised were even part of this sum diverted to constructive work. Disarmament has always been regarded as Utopian and impracticable. Perhaps it is, but may we ask whether the frantic armaments race, largely the result of power politics, is really practical or even sane?

EASY TOLERANCE Peal tolerance is born of love and shows itself in the desire to consider others, to be open-minded to the opinions of others, to bo kind in all our dealings with others, and generous 111 our estimates ot others, writes the Rev. Hugh Black in his book, "Christ or Caesar." But this generosity and good-will can easily become soft compliance. When a moral issue is drawn, tolerance can s|>end all its ' time in btraddling the line. It can become ft mood of easy-going concession, and that very soon breeds indifference. It is not hard to be tolorant, if you do not care one way or the other, if you are hazy about right and wrong. Some men are praised for their breadth of view and their wide tolerance of differing opinions, who should be blamed for having no opinions to speak of.

HIGHLY ARTIFICIAL WICKETS

it is a little surprising that none of the many cricket critics who have been lamenting the new records has concentrated on the essential cause of the change in the game, writes Sir \Y. Beach Thomas. Much batting may bo unenterprising and much bowling may be unoriginal; but the successful dullness of the batsmen and the inefficiency of the bowler in international "games are produced bv the highly artificial manufacture of the wicket. Ihe soil is at the root ol the matter, as in many other things. A level patch of grass can bo so treated with marl and other substances and so perfectly rolled over a long period that it becomes a sort of concrete slab, on which the ball keeps a uniform height and refuses to turn. Even heavy rain will not percolate. Wickets fall only when batsmen get themselves out by excess of enterprise or want of common skill. The chemical and mechanical treatmeant of the soil is likely to be the ruin of the game, though (on the other hand) it is a terribly difficult business to prevent the grass (especially in London) from deteriorating through the necessarily regular use of the mowing machine.

NAZI SHOWMANSHIP The belief in Hitler's superhuman qualities appears to be widespread; certainly it is encouraged by the vast displays in Nuremberg, says Miss Virginia Cowles in writing her impressions of the Nazi Congress in the Sunday Times. Everything that is done here is done on a gigantic scale. The power of the spectacles lies not so much in their ingeniousness as in their immensity. The keynote is always repetition and uniformity. Instead of a few gilt eagles there are hundreds; instead of hundreds of flags there are thousands; instead of thousands of performers there are hundreds of thousands. At night the mystic quality of the ritual is exaggerated by great burning urns at the top of the stadium with orange flame shooting toward the blackness, while the floodlighting effects of hundreds of powerful searchlights play eerily against the sky. The music is of an almost religious solemnity, timed by the steady beat of drums that sound like the distant throb of tom-toms. When the great stage is set Hitler appears. The music and the dramatic quality of these spectacles appeal strongly to the Teutonic character. More important, however, is the fact that the people feel that Hitler has given them a "cause." The struggle of Germany, he tells them, is not the struggle to advance merely for the sake of advancement; it is the struggle to preserve civilisation against the Communists and the Jews. This is continuously emphasised in the party exhibition halls in Nuremberg. Here you see gigantic maps of Europe with Czechoslovakia painted the same dangerous red as Soviet Russia and Franco dwindling into a vivid pink. BRITISH RACE SUICIDE "One high authority has estimated that between 1931 and 1951 the number of children in England and Wales will have fallen by 4,000,000, from 9,500,000 to 5,500,000, while those aged 45 and over will increase by 2,500,000." said Sir Leonard Hill in his presidential address at Edinburgh to the Sanitary Inspectors' Association. "This is because we have been doing everything to secure comfort and prolong life and nothing to encourage birth of children on which the virility of a nation depends. Figures published by the London County Council on the drop in birth-rate anil of children at school confirm these estimates. The British race is on the down grade all over the world, and this is not due to crowding for in Australia the birthrate has fallen from 42$ in 1800-64 to 16-17 now, and in New Zealand from 40 in 1875-79 to under 17 now. There are no slums in these Dominions, and in no other country is there such a high standard of living or life more sunny and pleasant. In contrast the Maoris have a birth-rate of 40. In Quebec, where the French-Canadians form 79 per cent of the population, the birth-rate is 245, while in British Columbia, where the people are almost all British, it is 13$. French-Canadians, under the influence of their clergy, believe in hard work, thrift, discipline and the duty of having families. In South Africa 58 per cent of the white people are Dutch and 34 per cent British, and the fertility of the former is much tlio higher, but the whites, who are greatly outnumbered by coloured people, are declining. Even if the British change in their present attitude to birth it tukes at least 15 years to make a worker, and much longer to educate oue of the governing class, whose birth-rate is 50 per cent down. Expenditure on armaments, roads and buildings increases by vast amounts, and for whom when children in 20 years are to be halved in number."